Each morning T. Jefferson Bender arose with the lark, and, seizing his dissecting knife, plunged into whatever subject was spread before him. In the afternoon he attended lectures, bending a hungry ear and watching with eager eye, while the lecturer, in illustration of his remarks, tortured poor people, free of charge. At night, when the day's carvings, and listenings, and lookings were over, T. Jefferson Bender sat in his easy chair and peered down the long aisle of coming time.
The world was bright to the glance of T. Jefferson Bender; the future full of promise. In his musings he saw himself striding towards surgical fame and riches over a pathway strewn with the amputational harvest of his skill. He filled the hereafter with himself routing disease; cutting down deadly maladies as a farmer might the mullein-stalk; driving before him bacteria and bacilli in herds, droves, schools and shoals. T. Jefferson Bender was a happy man, and his forehead was already, in his imaginings, kissed by the rays of a dawning professional prosperity.
CHAPTER II
T. Jefferson Bender allowed himself but one relaxation. He was from Lexington, and had a true Kentuckian's love for horseflesh. Thus it was that he patronised the races, and was often seen at Morris Park, where he prevailed from a seat in the grand-stand. Here, casting off professional dignity as he might a garment, T. Jefferson Bender whooped and howled and hurled his hat on high, as race following race swept in.
At intervals T. Jefferson Bender was carried to such heights of madness as “playing the horses.” And then it was he suffered those vicissitudes which are chronicled colloquially under the phrase of “getting it in the neck.”